miles1

:)

Hi John,

 

I'm pleased you like the PS work I did. I quite enjoy the post-process work actually but then I like to work quickly. I whizz through the images at the rate of 1 or 2 a second on Aperture software, pick the ones I like and do a few global edits in PS (B&W conversion, curves, local contrast and possibly some dodging and burning - just a few minutes per shot) because I don't even know how to (want to) use layers.

 

I would also love to renew our acquaintance in person. I feel we have much in common in our photographic tastes and very much enjoyed your company last time - we had some good conversations and covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. I'm in SE Asia right now but am normally in London in the summer - get in touch if you are ever near.

 

Thanks for your compliments, I also admire your work hugely and am particularly intrigued by your vision both in terms of composition and verbal dissection after the event.

 

I won't bore you by telling you it's 90 degrees here (oops!), maybe you need a break in the sun and we can catch up over a bowl of noodles.

 

Best to you,

 

Miles.

Brilliant!

Many thanks for having a look.

Poetic...

Brilliant!

Hello John,

 

I hope you are keeping well.

 

You know I normally carry some sort of camera with me, sometimes the big full frame digital Nikon or more likely at the moment a small film rangefinder. In fact I had the latter in the car when I nipped into the fast food establishment where this scene presented itself to me. I mean you mustn't take the picture, the picture has got to take you, right? Well this grabbed me immediately but, alas, my phone was not at the ready; it froze up and had to be rebooted forcing me to endure an agonising two minute wait praying all the time that the lady seated here wouldn't move before I could shoot. Luckily she didn't.

 

Do you ever find that when taking a picture which you know will turn out well that time seems to slow down? This slo-mo thing seems to happen to me often when taking some of my better shots though not always. Sometimes they come out of mere reflex. A mix of fast and slow, technique wise, for me anyway.

 

I have to say as time and technology progress I am less and less concerned with resolution, sharpness and so forth and more interested in just the picture itself and achieving it with stealth at the right instant whilst ensuring optimum composition. I am amazed at how one can shoot away with with a little black camera these days, bobbing and weaving, and hardly get noticed. Street photography is analogous to boxing in some ways.

 

I think the compact digital camera has forced a paradigm shift in the public's perception as to how a photograph is actually taken, i.e. camera held out at arms length instead of viewfinder to the eye. This has really helped.

 

I am going to print this onto 10 x 8 paper and see how it stands up at viewing distance. Sure I won't try A3 as I do quite often.

 

Good to hear from you, John,

 

Best wishes,

 

Miles.

Excellent!

iPhone 'on the fly'

Hi John,

 

I dropped by to take a look and find that you are a little off colour (pun unintentional) health-wise.

 

I do hope you feel much better soonest and continue to keep your audience satisfied with your fine photos and extraordinarily conscientious always interesting commentary.

 

Best wishes,

 

Miles.

A tired fisherman sits down for a meal after a hard days work in Southern Thailand; for

a moment he seems to be lost in thought while looking at the painting hanging above

him, what could he be thinking?

Thanks Jörg the light really is beautiful in this little alley,

 

Regards,

 

Miles.

Thanks for stopping by and for the nice comments,

 

Regards,

 

Miles.

Cambodian mother and daughter.

Notre Dame, Paris 2008.

Thanks Steve; yes I agree that would be interesting to see with perspective correction. I'll give it a try sometime.

Regards,

Miles.

You are right about the blurring, I photoshopped it in one minute flat and was just 'sketching' out a rough possible look.

 

You know Cartier-Bresson's most famous and lauded photograph was heavily cropped. I have seen the original "Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, France" (1932) and it is tilted and partially obstructed by the fence he was poking his lens through. When talking about this photograph he said he was not even looking through the viewfinder but simply guessed the composition and the result was pure "luck." My view is that he spent much of his later life preserving his legacy and with the use of 'smoke and mirrors' mystifying his art. He did a lot of research, for example, when preparing for "Hyères, France, 1932" and found out exactly what time the bicyclist would pass by every day in order that he could wait to capture the decisive moment. Was this "luck" or meticulous planning of a perfect composition? He was also ambiguous in perpetuating the myth that all his shots were taken with a 50mm lens when clearly many (I'd guess more than half) were taken with a 35mm. I have spoken to people who encountered him and he was indeed carrying the 35mm.

 

Having said all that I don't generally crop my own photographs and embrace the discipline of nailing it in camera.

 

I am enjoying using the Nikon D700 right now with a 35mm lens set almost permanently to f8 and and find the results mostly more pleasing than when using a zoom. The thrill of using FX with a prime is hard to articulate but it is making me fall in love with photography all over again just as I did when I first got a film SLR as a teenager. This self limitation forces me to really 'make' the photograph and takes me back to what I always thought photography was about.

 

Every time I pass by your portfolio I discover something wonderful, I think HCB would have enjoyed your photograph 'No Words.'

 

I hope we cross paths again soon. Do get in touch if you find yourself in London or the far East. I am finding London particularly fun shooting on the streets with it's combination of architecture, vibrant graffiti scene and diverse characters.

 

Regards,

 

Miles.

Beautiful sense of movement, texture and composition. Really brilliant, one of the very best street photographs I have seen on this site.

Regards, Miles.

Just great!

I thought the same as Boris, a crop would make it more powerful.

Very funny and very good!

Southbank, London.

Nikon D700, 35mm f2.

I would say that I absorbed rather than studied HC-B's and many other photographers' work at that young age without fully understanding why exactly it worked so well. Only later I learned how to truly 'read' photographs. I shoot instinctively, however, composing mostly subconsciously and then analysing the results later; isn't that how you work?

I hope to meet with you again too John. I hugely enjoyed brainstorming the world of photography with you and feel I learned some valuable lessons shooting on the street with you.

 

When I first became interested in photography as a child my father passed me a book and said that in his opinion this photographer was the best in the world. The book in question was "Cartier-Bresson's France" a less well known issue from 1970. I was fascinated by the pictures and it spurred me into going out and capturing life on my Olympus OM 2 (that's the opposite of your story isn't it?.) The book contained a number of colour photographs, would you believe it, and it always occurred to me that they were just like his black & white work but in colour. It's in the style essentially.

 

My Best wishes,

 

Miles.